Laura Cornelius Kellogg ("Minnie") ("Wynnogene") (September 10, 1880 – 1947), was an Oneida leader, author, orator, activist and visionary. Kellogg, a descendant of distinguished Oneida leaders, was a founder of the Society of American Indians. Kellogg was an advocate for the renaissance and sovereignty of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and fought for communal tribal lands, tribal autonomy and self-government. Popularly known as "Indian Princess Wynnogene," Kellogg was the voice of the Oneidas and Haudenosaunee people in national and international forums. During the 1920s and 1930s, Kellogg and her husband, Orrin J. Kellogg, pursued land claims in New York on behalf of the Six Nations people. Kellogg's "Lolomi Plan" was a Progressive Era alternative to Bureau of Indian Affairs control emphasizing indigenous American self-sufficiency, cooperative labor and organization, and capitalization of labor. According to historian Laurence Hauptman, "Kellogg helped transform the modern Iroquois, not back into their ancient League, but into major actors, activists and litigants in the modern world of the 20th century Indian politics."
Early life
Laura Cornelius Kellogg was born on the Oneida Indian Reservation at Green Bay, Wisconsin, one of five children of Adam Poe and Celicia Bread Cornelius. Her surviving siblings were Chester Poe Cornelius, Alice Cornelius, and Frank Ford Cornelius. Kellogg came from a distinguished lineage of Indian tribal leaders, which is said to have contributed a great deal to her racial pride of the Oneida heritage. Her paternal grandfather was John Cornelius, Oneida chief and brother of Jacob Cornelius, chief of the Orchard faction of Oneidas. Her maternal grandfather was Chief Daniel Bread, who helped find land for his people after the Oneidas were forcibly removed from New York State to Wisconsin in the early nineteenth century. Kellogg was also related to Elijah Skenandore, a prominent political figurehead for the Oneida in the nineteenth century, who was well known for his oratorical skills.
Unlike many of her contemporaries on the reservation, Cornelius managed to avoid the usual educational route to distant Indian Eastern boarding schools at Carlisle and Hampton. She attended Grafton Hall, a private finishing school administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The school was within 60 miles of her home at Seymour, Wisconsin, and provided a setting that included mostly non-Indian women. Cornelius attributed her education to both her "time spent at the soup kettle on the reservation" as well as institutes of higher learning. This experience left Cornelius feeling more enlightened and enabled her to "appreciate the real values of truth." In 1898, Kellogg graduated with honors. Her graduation essay, "The Romans of America," compared the Iroquois Confederacy to the ancient Roman Empire. Her pride in her Iroquois roots provided her with a strong measure of self-confidence. After Kellogg graduated in 1898, she spent two years traveling around Europe. She later went on to study at Stanford, Barnard College, Columbia, Cornell, and The University of Wisconsin.
"Minnie", as she was known to her friends, taught briefly at the Oneida Indian Boarding School, in Oneida, Wisconsin, as well as at the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, from 1903 to 1905. On May 12, 1903, some 80 miles southeast of Riverside, the Bureau of Indian Affairs evicted a community of Cupeño Indians from their traditional home on the Warner Springs Ranch. Kellogg was reported to have played a crucial role in persuading the Cupeño not to resist relocation to the Pala Reservation, 40 miles away. California newspapers dubbed her "An Indian Heroine" and "The Indian Joan of Arc" for her conciliatory speech reported to have prevented an uprising. The eviction of the Warner Ranch Indians was reported as the crowning crime of the white men against the California Indians who had lawful title to their lands. That year, Kellogg published her only surviving poem, "A Tribute to the Future of My Race," which she recited during the commencement exercises at Sherman Institute. This poem reflects on contact and the relations between European and indigenous people, noting "Every human heart is human." Of Europeans, she writes kindly and with hope "Ye spring from noble warrior blood, as brave as Saxon, Roman, Greek, a race of kingly men, May your careers be as complete as the arches of your mater halls."